


After Everything

by HaroThar



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Depression, Horrorterrors - Freeform, M/M, Minor Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, One-sided John Egbert/Karkat Vantas - Freeform, The Fridge, This is... not a happy read, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 01:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16882884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: Karkat finds the fridge





	After Everything

**Author's Note:**

> I was in a gamkar mood but then I wrote this abomination. Also thank you Shye for entertaining my demands for a prompt
> 
> Someone, somewhere: “But Equius is indigo in CANON! Gamzee is just purple!”  
> Me, smart, with eyes: Fuck you I do what I want

Karkat loved his matesprit-boyfriend, and loved spending time with him, and did enjoy their archeological digs together. All this was true. However, after the millionth fucking Statue of Liberty--which Dave still for some shitty ironic reason thought was hilarious despite being the billionth fucking statue--Karkat decided he’d check out for this next one. Dave was busy taking selfies with yet another identical, buried massive hunk of metal in the form of a torch carrying lady, Jade was rambling off about something or other, and Karkat decided it’d be fine and fucking dandy if he just took a walk. Explored the area.

They were within visible distance of the meteor, here. It was still something of an enigma to Karkat, the exact timeline of this planet. Jane and her group had grown up on this planet, it had died the fiery death of red miles, it had somehow been transported into the game medium so the meteor could crash land on it, it had been transported back out so Calliope could grow up on it, then transported back in again with Calliope’s shitty brother and then somehow?? Jade had acquired it? Whatever. The fuck even were their lives? It didn’t actually matter, anyway, Karkat thought to himself as he stared across the long trek from where he stood to the distant outline of the meteor.

He turned away and wandered a bit more, hands in his pockets, an idle and pleasant sort of restlessness in him that kind of made him want to pull out his sickles and flail around with them like he used to when he was a nymph. He came across a shallow cave of some sort and his troll hindbrain was delighted, not even hesitating to propel him forward into the welcoming shadows.

There were scattered items gathered here, just beyond the lip of the cave. Sun and water were absent from the atmosphere, so they were pretty well-preserved, Karkat noted, as the easy mood from earlier fizzed out. Thousands of years had turned metal to rust, but there hadn’t been enough moisture in the arid climate of the area and this hidden crevice to make it so the metal could not retain its shape, and so Karkat found a long series of chains rusted all the way through, but their forms intact. The chains led him to a long metal rectangle that he recognized as a fridge. The fridge.

Guilt. Anger. Sorrow. The ever present, sometimes quiet, sometimes loud, pervasive question of _why?_ Karkat knelt quietly next to the open fridge, seeing the skeletons of his dead friends. The meat and cloth and blood had long since been turned to dust, but the bones and horns remained. The metal of the fridge was rusted and stained, and Karkat idly deluded himself into thinking he could make out the colors as his fingers traced the marks. Yellow and fuschia, green and navy, brown and violet.

Indigo.

“What happened, Gamzee?” Karkat whispered to the silent cave, to four sets of horns and none of them wavy. He let his arm drop from the rust into the pile of bones, sweater nestled between a pair of twin horns and fingers resting on the curve of a grinning skull.

Karkat had never god tiered. He’d never even reached the top rung of his echeladder. But he _had_ climbed some of the rungs, and so maybe he couldn’t do _the_ bloody thing, but he could do _a_ bloody thing. And Karkat didn’t understand what the thing his body and vestigial powers were trying to do, but he closed his eyes, hand in the bones of people he’d loved once, tongue asking a broken question he needed some sort of answer to, and he let it happen.

 _He_ crawled across the cave floor before hoisting _himself_ up on a rock formation, then staggered out into the sunlight. _His_ eyes fixed themselves upon the meteor, and _he_ began to walk.

Time was different, like this. It felt different, anyway, _his_ body slower and the clock much faster than either thing was supposed to move.

The meteor was not exactly built with climbing the exterior in mind, but at the same time it hadn’t been built with the idea of thwarting climbers, either. Karkat’s arms felt too short, his legs not long enough. _He_ climbed, heedless of _his_ tired legs, ignoring the pain in _his_ palms at the way the rust and metal and rock dug into _his_ skin. _He_ climbed all the way to the top, all the way to the highest point, safest point, no danger to reach them there _(who’s them?)._ There was a hole and a ladder already there. _He_ climbed down it.

There was a room. There was a slab. Karkat didn’t want to be there. _He_ moved into the space. The place was just large enough, two sides to it marking two very different blocks. One was full of meat and stains and wreckage, a computer the only thing that was intact. The other had boxes of stardust, heaps of books and papers, art of people Karkat recognized but _he_ didn’t recognize along the walls but those weren’t supposed to be there yet. Karkat’s first instinct was to tidy the insufferable mess, and _he_ needed to get the space ready.

Rotted meat went into storage, art was carefully, carefully, carefully taken down and neatly stacked in amongst the blank papers, books were straightened, the lid was placed back on the slab _(Karkat didn’t like it didn’t like it didn’t want to touch it oh god bad energies bad vibes bad jujus bad whatever the actual bulge shitting fuck you wanna call it bad bad bad),_ and the wiring for the computers were checked to ensure they’d turn on. Their home was ready, and now _he_ needed to go out to his high vantage point that let _him_ stare over the endless waves of sand and dirt and grey desert, and wait. _He_ climbed the ladder back to the top, and Karkat saw Dave and Jade just before they landed.

“Dude! Answer your fuckin’ phone!” Dave said in a way that might have sounded angry if he wasn’t so clearly worried, and there was a _snap_ and Karkat walked straight into Dave’s shitty red pajamas, hugging him and pressing his face into Dave’s shoulder.

“Shit, Karkat, dude are you doin’ okay there? Me and Jade have been lookin’ for you for hours and you’re not even screamin’ did somethin’ happen?”

“I’m fine,” Karkat lied, not in any way shape or form currently capable of discussing whatever the actual FUCK that was.

“What were you doing in the meteor?” Jade asked, walking towards the hole Karkat had just climbed out of.

He felt a rush of something like panic and blurted, “Nothing! I was having some asinine trip down memory fucking lane that backfired spectacularly and shall hence-fucking-forth never be discussed! Let’s just. Go.”

“Karkles are you--”

“Let’s go, douchenozzle, you can even fucking carry me I just. Don’t want to be here anymore.”

Karkat was very, very grateful when Dave picked him up and let it go. Karkat was quiet on the flight back, trying to sort his thoughts and failing spectacularly.

* * *

 

It was such bullshit that he and Kanaya still remained the only members of their friend group that couldn’t fly. It meant Karkat had to acquire some method of flight, and that was a headache just to think about.

Asking Terezi to borrow her dragon pack was right out. Abso-fucking-lutely not. Asking Dirk to borrow his evil skateboard of death could go over well, he probably wouldn’t ask any questions and if he did, Karkat could pretty easily wave any inquiries off. Dirk was chill like that. But while Karkat had a decent sense of balance, one wrong move on that thing would in fact leave Karkat entirely stranded, and Karkat didn’t want to waste time practicing on the deathtrap. Karkat could save his pride and go snooping around the meteor to see if Tavros had left his old mini-jet in a chest somewhere. Karkat didn’t have a four wheeled device but he was pretty sure he could just sit in a normal chair in the thing. But he wasn’t patient enough to go through every fucking chest and crevice those assholes had left lying around that massive hunk of rock. (He might chicken out if he waited too long.)

And such was the line of reasoning that led Karkat to the doorstep of his definitely-not-longterm-pitch-crush, John Egbert. He had a rocket pack that Karkat could strap himself into, and while yes, it would cost Karkat a significant amount of pride and also dignity and word would definitely get around, he’d at least already be in the aether by the time Terezi caught wind so. Oh well.

“Egfuck!” Karkat shouted loudly as he pounded on the door again. “I know you’re home! You never fucking go anywhere! Open up!”

John did, finally, open up, and he was bedheaded and in his pajamas.

“Aren’t trolls nocturnal?” John grumbled, squinting at Karkat.

“Aren’t humans diurnal?” Karkat snipped back. “I need to borrow your jetpack.”

“...Why?”

“Does it fucking matter! Just give me the pack and go bad to your hideous slothful den of blankets!”

John yawned wide and turned, gesturing to Karkat. “Fine, whatever. I think it’s in the laundry room.”

Karkat followed and was immediately repulsed by the general state of things. “John, if you don’t clean your own fucking hive I’m going to regularly come over and do it for you,” he said, stepping over a small grouping of clothes that didn’t even qualify as a pile, nose wrinkled in disgust.

“Well we can’t have that happening, can we?” John joked, but it came out flat thanks to his recent journey to the waking world. He rifled through a file folder of captcha cards, and handed over the one with the jetpack.

“Thanks,” Karkat grumbled, and John yawned again and threw the file on top of a messy stack.

“Whatever,” John said, slinging a ridiculously oversized arm that totally-didn’t-do-things to Karkat over Karkat’s shoulders and Karkat resisted the urge to screech. “But really though, what are you doing with a jetpack? Won’t you like, die immediately?”

“If your six sweep old ass didn’t die with this thing, I’ll be fucking fine, thanks.”

“You’re awfully cagey.”

“And it’s none of your fucking business!” Karkat knew John was gonna tell people Karkat was up to something, but that was why he was ready to leave right then. It would be a single trip from John’s home to the entry-point back into the Game.

* * *

 

What was Karkat even doing here?

Terezi’s long-ass stint looking for she-who-must-not-be-named had been unsuccessful, why should Karkat think things would go any better for him? Upon his arrival he could see, off in the far distance, the Muse creating the black hole, and past that he could see the cracks in the universe.

He didn’t realize how close to those cracks he actually was.

He didn’t realize that there were things behind them.

 _Little Karkat, little Game-cheater,_ he heard, not with his ears but in his pan.

_Little Karkat who won the prize without beating the Game._

_Little Karkat who stopped trying halfway through._

_Little Karkat, are you here for the spiderbitch too?_

“No,” Karkat tried, his voice cracking excessively. “No,” he tried again, voice clearer that time. His eyes searched, but all he saw were rainbow lightning cracks that glowed and the darkness beyond them.

_Prospit eyes, can you see us?_

_Perhaps it is too bright._

The cracks started to disappear, and Karkat felt a feral, primal fear grip his hindbrain. They weren’t being erased, they were being covered by the darkness, like rungs on a ladder covered by grasping hands.

“I,” Karkat tried to start, ears pinned flat against his skull, worthless nubby teeth bared and worthless nubby horns lowered. The multicolored lights snuffed out, and Karkat’s eyes adjusted.

Horrorterrors.

He was speaking to horrorterrors.

Oh he was so _fucked._

He tried to bolt, remembering now that he had a jetpack strapped to his body and could’ve run at any time, but when he turned he realized they’d surrounded him. Massive swaths of undulating tentacles and fangs and eyes held him in a sphere of darkness, and of terror. He didn’t have the mind to acknowledge it, but it was a good thing he’d gone to the bathroom before he left.

_Prospit eyes, can you see us now?_

_Prospit eyes, what are you looking for?_

Karkat tried to remember what he knew about horrorterrors. Don’t make deals with them, speak respectfully but try not to show too much fear, don’t lie to them, don’t tell them your full name, don’t piss them off. Myths and Feferi’s bitching about her lusus all mingled together in his pan and he wasn’t quite sure how to sort the rumors from the hard and fast rules that would keep him from getting painfully mauled and eaten.

But the question was simple enough.

“Gamzee,” Karkat said quietly, into the mass of terror and flesh.

And the horrors stilled.

_Gamzee._

One of the horrorterrors moved closer, and all of Karkat’s vision was swallowed in the bulk of skin and scale that got closer and closer and closer but never managed to arrive, only bigger and louder and pressingly terrifying on his small and feeble pan.

_Why are you looking for Gamzee, after so long, after your victory, after everything?_

“Because something’s--not right,” Karkat squeaked. A pressing _sense_ that that a good enough answer bore down on him, so he continued, “I have questions I need to ask him.”

_An honest liar._

_You tell the truth, little Karkat._

_**But not all of it.**_

Karkat swallowed and felt the horrorterrors in his mind, psychic tentacles probing through him and digging up answers he didn’t know he’d locked away. Old memories he’d repressed or deliberately forgotten, feelings he ignored and bottled up, truths he hid even from himself. They'd help him, they'd give him what he wanted, but he had to answer their question first.

Because something’s not right, because he has questions that need answers, but also because even still, even after everything that happened,

“I still love him.”


End file.
